


Yelling At Stormclouds

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, If Beau Could Punch A God She Probably Would, Yelling At Gods, post episode 25
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: “Where were you?” Beau screamed, louder this time. “She needed you and you weren’t there! And now she’s gone! They’re gone!They’re gone and you didn’t do anything to stop it!”Beau yells at the gods, or maybe just at herself, not caring who hears her.





	Yelling At Stormclouds

Beau woke up when the first grumble of thunder sounded, the rain pounding against the barrier of magic that protected them. The inside of the space was dimly lit, and she could just make out the still form of Caleb next to her, Nott curled in her usual spot against him. Past them was Molly, the curve of his horns a dark shadow. She sighed and rolled onto her back. The magic protecting them was translucent, and through it she could see lightning crawling across the clouds.

It had been a week. A week since they had woken up to three of their friends missing, woken up to blood in the grass and drag marks in the dirt and cart tracks that lead to the road. A week of discussions and fights and fragile silences and compromises that no one was happy about. Because three of them were gone, but four of them were left, a tragic equation unsolved, and they still had a job for the Gentleman to complete, and no leads to follow on their friends, just cart tracks that lead to the road and blended into obscurity.

It had been Molly who remembered that the Gentleman had vials of everyone’s blood, of course, that Cree could help track down their friends, but there was no way to get a message quickly to Zadash and to the Gentleman with Jester gone, and that it would be best to remain on the Gentleman’s good side by completing their mission for him and escorting his friend back to the city. Molly had been right, and Beau had yelled at him because she was angry at him for being right, for being sensible. She had seen the lost look on his face when he had caught sight of the blood in the grass, the way he had stretched out one shaking hand as if hoping for some new power to manifest.

It had been Caleb that had offered Molly comfort, because Beau had none to give. She had learned many things growing up, math and languages, how to bargain, how to make a profit. There had been things she had taught herself, how to pick locks, how to fight, how to undermine those with power over her. Comfort and honest praise was not something she had been taught by example, and she was still clumsy at it, still fumbled with her words and sometimes left things worse than before. Like earlier that evening, when Caleb had cast a new spell that he had found in an old book in the last town they had stopped at for supplies. It was a spell that created a space around them that was dry and warm and _safe_ , because no one could enter the circle who hadn’t been there when the spell was cast. It meant no one had to stay up to keep watch anymore, meant they could sleep without worry of being ambushed.

“This is great, Caleb,” Beau had said, but her words had sounded flat and hollow in her own ears, and the smile she had tried to give him had been so forced that Caleb had flinched from it like it had been a fist. It wasn’t that she hadn’t meant the words, she _had_ , but she had a feeling that what Caleb had heard instead was what she hadn’t said.

_If you had known this magic a week ago, maybe Yasha and Jester and Fjord would still be here._

Everyone had lapsed into silence shortly after, and then into sleep. Except now Beau was awake and staring up at the storm. Lightning and thunder made her think of Yasha, of course, of her connection with storms, her connection with her god. And just like that Beau was getting up and walking outside the protective boundary, out into the rain. She wondered if Yasha was getting rained on right now, if Fjord and Jester were with her, if any of them were still alive. She shivered, both because she was wet and cold and because of her own thoughts, finally coming to a stop in a part of the field where the grass reached almost to her knees.

Beau stared up into the storm, squinting at lightning as it crawled across the sky as if it were writing she was trying to decipher. She thought of a night back in Zadash, the way Yasha had stared out of the window of their room for hours during a storm like this one. Had she been praying then? Beau knew how the monks prayed to the Knowing Mistress, silent prayers unspoken in quiet rooms, or prayers written on special scrolls or books and left on altars or shrines. There were no altars or shrines to the Stormlord in the Empire, but Beau was standing in the middle of a storm. Surely that had to count for something, right? Beau didn’t really go in for prayer much under normal circumstances, preferring to rely on herself and her own strengths rather than lean on the divine, but the circumstances were far from normal. The least she could do was ask the Stormlord to keep Yasha safe, to keep all her friends safe. He had delivered Yasha from some terrible fate before, right? He could do it again.

“ **Where were you?** ” Beau shouted instead, her hands clenched into fists as if she could punch the storm, anger rising up in her instead of deference. “ **Where were you when she needed you?** ”

The rain turned to hail, stinging and sharp, as if the storm was angry at her for asking.

“ **Where were you?** ” Beau screamed, louder this time. “ **She needed you and you weren’t there! And now she’s gone! They’re gone!** **They’re gone and you didn’t do anything to stop it!”**

Thunder boomed so hard that Beau swore she felt the ground shake beneath her feet. Seconds later lightning flashed nearby, bright enough to blind. Beau cursed and closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face.

“ **Bring her back! Bring them back! I’ll—** “ Lightning flashed against her closed eyelids as her voice broke, words caught in her throat, jagged and sharp, and whether they would have been a threat or a pledge or a promise, Beau didn’t even know. She tried to open her eyes but they hurt, and all she could see was the blue-white after image of the lightning flash. She turned and took several staggering steps back the way she had come, shivering.

“Beau?”

Beau made a pained, croaking sound that would have been a surprised yell under better circumstances and blindly reached out in the direction her name had come from. A hand grabbed hers, the skin warm and ridged with fine scars. “Molly? I can’t see shit. The lightning—“

“I’ve got you,” Molly said. “Let’s get you out of the rain. Unless you’re not done yelling?”

Beau felt shame creep up her spine. Molly had heard her having a tantrum at a god like a child. Hells, Caleb and Nott might have heard her too. “No, I’m done.”

“You sure?” Molly asked as he lead her slowly through the grass. “I have to admit, yelling at the gods in the middle of an open field during a thunderstorm is one of the more interesting forms of prayer I’ve ever seen.” A pause. “I wasn’t worried until you _stopped_ yelling, actually. I thought maybe you’d been struck by lightning or….”

Thunder rumbled, filling in the rest of Molly’s sentence. Now that the main force of Beau’s anger had been spent, she just felt tired and cold and foolish. “Sorry. Did I—ow— did I wake everyone else up?”

“That would imply any of us were actually sleeping,” Molly said. “Though for a second I thought maybe I _had_ fallen asleep and I was dreaming you were yelling at me.”

Beau stopped walking and opened her eyes. She still couldn’t see, but hopefully that was because it was dark and not because she had indeed been blinded by the lightning. “At _you_?”

“Well yeah. I mean, I wasn’t there when they needed me either. I was asleep same as you and Caleb and Nott, that night. So I thought maybe you were yelling at me, and then I thought maybe you were yelling at yourself and I went out to tell you that you were being an idiot and you should save all that anger for the people who actually deserve it.” He tugged at her hand. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up. No one is allowed to get sick until we get Jester back. I’ll make everyone some tea.”

Beau followed Molly. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened, I mean.”

“Wasn’t yours either,” Molly said casually. “And you should stop talking, your voice sounds even worse than usual.”

“Fuck you,” Beau rasped, but she might have grinned a little despite the pain.

“Fuck you too,” Molly replied cheerfully.

Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance as the storm, and Whomever may or may not have been listening, moved on.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who thinks I write things quickly, this is barely 1,500 words and it took me DAYS to write. Results not typical. 
> 
> The spell Caleb used here was Leomund's Tiny Hut, which has been a bookmark in my reference folder for months. It's the far less glamorous but still useful precursor to Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion, and I feel would very much be something Caleb would like to learn.
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if y'all would like to stop by and say hi!


End file.
